Just saw that Everett schools are about lay off 110 people, 58 of them teachers. They’ve got a $7M shortfall. The linked news report blames it on the state aid formula for disadvantaged students. While I know there’s severe problems with that formula, that doesn’t explain how the system hit a shortfall in the middle of the school (and city/state fiscal) year. The FY18 budget should have been set last year. If they didn’t have the money, we shouldn’t be learning about that in February.
The mid-year slash job is particularly troublesome because Everett has seen the most explosive student population rate in the state, 35.4% from 2006-16. That might be a major factor lurking under the covers here.
What’s really baffling is didn’t Everett make a deal with the devil (aka Steve Wynn) for giant piles of cash in exchange for approving his casino? I know it’s not open yet, but it’s halfway up and the city should be rolling in money thanks to the construction permit fees alone. This is the opposite of what was supposed to be happening in Everett. Seriously, how does this city suddenly have no money?
Finally, if you watch the video in the first link, it ends with Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria talking about how he’s trying to minimize the shock of the layoffs, “but I also have an obligation to taxpayers.” Apparently that doesn’t include taxpayers with kids in Everett public schools. The people of Everett ought to be burning that guy in effigy right about now. His responsibility to the taxpayers was to get the budget right in the first place to avoid this kind of steaming mess.
It should be flat-out illegal to lay off teachers in the middle of an academic year.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around how they wound up $7M short in the middle of the year in the first place. That ought to be impossible. Either something drove up their expenses or their local tax collection revenue dropped through the floor in the middle of the fiscal year or the mayor decided to gut his own school system in the middle of the year. Something extraordinary occurred to create this crisis.
I guess maybe the real two options are either the city screwed up massively or somebody’s up to no good.
Chelsea also did the same thing. Our new Chemistry teacher just came from there and was so scarred from the experience. He seems like a really good teacher and he has a PhD from Notre Dame. Still laid off.
A couple of facts:
Everett has plenty of money. They are $7,891,482 under their FY2018 levy limit. Only 16 municipalities have a greater excess levy capacity.
In Fiscal 2017, Everett failed to meet their $26,203,286 Required Local Contribution. They were $185,614 under their required spending. They received $64,492,534 in Chapter 70 state aid in FY 2017.
Seems that Everett wants to keep taxes low, with the expectation that the state will come in and replace the funds the city refuses to contribute for its schools.
Glad I checked back on this (been busy). So something is indeed rotten in Everett. I know Demaria just got re-elected there, but somebody needs to start planning now to take a firehose to that city’s government.